New NCQA Health Plan Accreditation Standards Address Behavioral Health Access

The new National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) health plan accreditation standards for 2016 have an intensified focus on access to medical and behavioral health care, even in the context of narrow networks. NCQA released the new standards on July 28, 2015; the new standards are effective as of July 1, 2016.

A new Network Management section provides a more comprehensive assessment of plan network adequacy. Some of the behavioral health network management standards are previously existing NCQA access measurement standards that are included in the new Network Management section without modification. Others are previous NCQA standards that have been . . .